The first Rule
by taye patterson
Summary: Short story. Lois is asked to go undercover to stop a meta human serail killer preying on young Metropolis coeds.


The First Rule

Saturday

**A double homicide** is what the first officer at the scene had called in. Two female college students found slain, their bodies ripped apart in an apartment building in midtown Metropolis. Investigative reporter Clark Kent tried to soak up all the information the detective was willing to give him, and he took copius notes on the little 59 cent notepad he always carried with him.

"Detective, do you have a suspect yet?" His partner and wife, Lois Lane asked the detective.

Detective Yarborough's brow furrowed and he gave her that all too familiar look that he gave whenever she'd asked a question that he either didn't have the answer to, or he wasn't about to give up. "We are still in the process of gathering all the information at this time Ms. Lane." A mischievous grin snuck across his face and he added, "We'll be sure to alert you personally when we do."

The sarcasm in his voice was all too apparent, but Lois didn't seem to care, which was one of the things Clark admired most about her. "I'll hold you to that promise detective." He turned and the left the two reporters so he could return to the crime scene.

The crime scene itself was the very image of macabre, and Clark was sure that if he had had the stomach of a normal man, he would've lost his breakfast by now. It looked as if the walls had been painted with blood. Viscera covered the black sheets, and made the carpet dark and sticky with the thick liquid. What was left of the two young women would have fit into a garbage bag. The bodies had been hideously dismembered, and torn apart. It looked like a wild animal had gotten a hold of them. Lois, being the tough and experienced reporter that she was, had gasped when she first saw the scene, but now seemed completely over her brief moment of disbelief.

"All right Clark, I know they're hiding something. What did you hear?" she asked him.

She was right. He had been using his super hearing to listen in on the conversation that the officers had been having. "Well, most of what he told us was dead on, except…Detective Yarborough believes the killer might have been a meta-human. Either the two girls knew him or he is very attractive, because it looks like they picked him up at a bar and brought him back to their place for a little ménage…"

"Clark!" she interrupted him, offering up a playful elbow to the gut. It didn't matter if the elbow had been playful or not, she might have broken her joint on impact had he not read her body and sank with the blow.

"What? I'm giving you verbatim here," he said with a smile, and then immediately regretted their playful nature in the face of the tragedy that had just took place. Clark used his index finger to lift the prescription glasses he wore as a disguise up a couple inches off his nose so he could, ironically, see better. One of the many gifts his Kryptonian heritage had bestowed upon him was the ability to see in all colors of the spectrum. Along with having telescopic as well as X-ray vision. He surveyed the room. Aside from the blood spatters there were fingerprints everywhere on the walls, on the television, on the desks and all the chairs. There were also footprints in the blood. One pair looked like the same size as Lois' foot, and another pair looked even smaller. So, those were his two girls. He continued to scan the bedroom in UV light. The blood was everywhere and it was clouding everything, but there it was, a print big enough to belong to a man.

_Where did you go? _Clark thought to himself, following the trail with his eyes. Apparently he only took two steps into the room, before the trail vanished. _Where did you go?_

He dropped his glasses back down onto his nose. "You find anything?" Lois asked.

"I…don't know," he answered.

She titled her head to look up at him. Long raven locks cascaded down her back and she sighed. "Well…looks like we wait. But, in the meantime, let's go grab some lunch. Then, maybe we can talk to some of the neighbors."

Clark followed his wife out of the apartment and into the main hall, then looked back at the bloody mess, and wrinkled his nose. "You wanna eat…after that!"

"Come on Smallville, don't tell me you're squeamish," she laughed. Then, she wrapped her arm around his and they made their exit.

**The restaurant that** Lois had chosen was small and out of the way. According to her, they served the best Mexican food on the East coast, not like that was saying much. Clark ordered the chili conquesos and Lois ordered the biggest burrito Clark had ever seen. A barbacoa she called it. He was impressed…and then he saw the way she ate it…no, attacked it, and he remembered why he was going to marry her.

"So… Clark. Where do we start?" She managed in between bites. "The neighbors, friends, or the bar?"

He gazed at her coolly, "D, none of the above. _We're_ not going to do anything. Superman is. It's too dangerous for you to start snooping around this time." He was firm with her, firmer than he had ever been before. He hoped she got the point. Which, knowing Lois she always did, she just didn't always care.

She shot him a look of stone cold defiance and started to say something but he interrupted her. "Don't fight me on this Lois. Something about this isn't right, and I want you to stay at a safe distance, okay?" He smiled at her before caressing her hand over the table. "…Please."

"Alright," she said, "I'm out of it."

Normally, he could tell when someone was lying to him but, Lois was one of those rare people who could bluff their way out of anything, and her body never gave her away. He hoped she was telling the truth.

**10,000 feet above** the streets of Metropolis, Superman tore through the night air like an F-15, obliterating the sound barrier and leaving a long azure and crimson contrail in his wake. He had been on patrol from the moment his shift ended at the Daily Planet, first pounding the pavement as Clark Kent, trying to gather information about the victims.

Through friends of the two girls, he learned that the previous night they had been to a dance club, frequented by college students. So, when 9 pm came around, he settled down on the rooftop of an 80 story complex, and changed back into his Clark Kent attire. It was time to question the bartenders.

In seconds he was down on the street, and after a short cab ride he found himself out in front of the nightclub. It was a two story building, probably 5,000 square feet. It had a large rectangular, neon sign at the top of the building that read, Luke and Duke's. He hoped at least one of them, Luke or Duke, had something helpful to tell him. He straightened his tie, perfecting his Clark Kent image, and double-checked his breast pocket to make sure he still had the pictures of the two girls. Then, he entered the club.

The bouncer gave him a weird look, like he was deciding whether or not to ask for I.D. Clark didn't hesitate he flashed his driver's license, making sure to accidentally drop his press pass on the ground. He knelt and slowly picked it up, when finally it achieved the desired effect.

"What are you a reporter or something?" the bouncer asked. His broad barrel chest rivaled Clark's own, and they were nearly the same height. His eyes had first challenged Clark, but now they looked to have softened up a bit.

"Yes, my name is Clark Kent, I'm with the Daily Planet. I'm doing a piece on the best clubs in Metropolis and I was told, this was the place to start."

"Well you heard right," Clark heard a voice say from behind him. A short, thin man walked up behind Clark. He had beady little black eyes and enough gel in his hair to lube a steam engine. He patted Clark on the back and extended his hand. "Owens. Todd Owens, I own the joint."

Clark shook the man's hand and followed him into the club, where Todd proceeded with the tour. Dim disco lighting and the not yet overpowering smell of cigarette smoke were the first things Clark noticed upon entering the club. There were probably three dozen people present at 10:00 and almost half of them were security. "Expecting a busy night?" Clark asked.

"Always. The kids need a way to blow off steam on the weekends, and I just offer 'em a place to do it." He glanced back at the door. "Look, here comes the rush now."

Clark turned his head, and sure enough there was a growing line outside of the door. He had just made it.

Then, Todd turned back around and continued giving Clark the tour. "Will you be staying long Mr. Kent?" he asked.

"That all depends."

"On what?"

"On whether or not I find what I'm looking for."

Todd smiled at Clark and then looked out at the burgeoning crowd beginning to mill in. "Oh, I think you'll find everything to your liking Mr. Kent."

"The only thing is…I heard you had some kind of trouble last night."

"Oh no. Not here."

"But, I heard that two girls who were at this club last night, were found murdered in their own home."

Todd was growing noticeably uncomfortable. "Maybe, but that has nothing to do with this club. The police were here earlier, but we didn't have anything to tell 'em. Most of my guys don't come in until seven. Before that it's just the daytime crew running the restaurant."

"So, the police will be back then?"

"Yeah, but that doesn't count against me does it?"

Clark looked out at the crowd and memorized the faces of all of the bouncers. "Uh…no, of course not. Listen, you don't mind if I talk to some of your security team do you?"

"Sure thing. I'll have one of the waitresses bring you over a drink. It's on the house, for as long as you want, whatever you want."

Clark smiled and walked toward the first of the bouncers. He was big like the guy at the door, with even less to say. Clark introduced himself and then showed him the pictures. In not so many words, he told Clark that he hadn't been at work for almost a week, so he didn't know who the girls were. The next six had said the same thing and after the seventh Clark decided to make his way to the bar.

The bartender came right over to him. He was another tall, strapping young man. He had dark sun kissed skin and wavy blonde hair. He flashed Clark a brilliant set of white teeth and asked, "What can I get for ya?"

Clark pulled the two pictures from his pocket. "These two girls. Do you remember seeing them last night?"

"Who them? That's Carla and Jaime, they're in here all the time. Real party girls if you know what I mean."

"No. I can't say that I do," Clark replied stoically, not showing any signs of amusement.

"Oh, come on man, you know…they get real wild and stuff. Like dancing on tables and making out with each other. Real wild stuff."

"Real wild stuff huh? These girls are _dead_." Clark snatched the pictures from him.

"Oh. Sorry man. I had no Idea. What are you like a cop or something?"

"Or something. Last night, whom did they leave with?"

The blonde bartender shrugged. "Hey man, I don't know all that. All I know is, they both used to date Charlie."

_Used to date both of them_, Clark thought. _That's your lead suspect right there!_ "Charlie…who's Charlie?" Clark asked.

"Charles Deavers, he's one of the bouncers. I think he's working the door tonight."

So. The name of the first person he had met was Charles Deavers. He was certainly big enough to kill two girls all by himself. But then again, so was every other member of the security team. Besides, it would take more than a little weight lifting to rip apart a human being with your bare hands. He had to find more suspects. He shoved his hands in his pockets and began to make his way through the sea of people outside to talk to Charles.

However, before he could even open his mouth to utter a word, he could hear the explosion and the screams. For a normal man, the sounds of explosions and screams when their were obviously none around might seem like a hallucination, but not for Clark. His supersensitive ears allowed him to hear things that no other man could. And he knew the explosion was real. He knew the screams were real too, and that's why the investigation would have to wait.

**It was after** three in the morning when Clark finally made it home. He refrained from using his super speed to disrobe in an attempt not to wake his wife. However, it didn't work. She rolled over and gazed at him just as he was removing the last of his crime fighting garments. His body looked as though it had been sculpted from granite, and the look she shot him was one of admiration and lust.

He walked over to her wearing only a pair of boxers retrieved from his top drawer, and sat down on the edge of the bed. "I didn't mean to wake you," he whispered, taking in a deep breath of her perfume, jasmine and strawberries, his favorite.

She sat up in the bed and kissed his shoulder. "I couldn't sleep anyway. What'd you find out?"

"I went to the club tonight, and interviewed some of the people there. Mostly just the people who worked there, trying to find out if anyone saw the girls last night."

"And…"

"And I think I found some suspects. I had to leave early because of the explosion at STAR, and then some other things popped up, but after that I came back to the club to interview one of the bouncers. According to the bartender, Charles Deavers used to date _both_ of the girls."

"Hmph," she bit her bottom lip, "it doesn't look good for old Charlie does it?"

"That's not all. Charlie said that those two girls were with tons of guys, and that if he was a suspect, then nearly half the people in the bar, on any given night should be suspects. And I emphasize people. Apparently neither girl discriminated between the sexes."

"Oh, I see. Whom else did you talk to?"

"The owner. His name is Todd Owens. I don't know, I can't get a fix on him. I doubt it's him, he wouldn't do anything that would hurt his club."

"And drunk college girls can only help," she added.

"You're right. So what do we do now?" He turned his head so he could have a clear view of his beautiful wife. Her streaming jet black hair was pulled back draping her delicate shoulders, and giving him full view of her high cheekbones, button nose, lush full lips, and baby brown eyes. And, hidden somewhere belowthe bedsheetswere enough curves to give even Mario Andretti a tough time.

She continued to kiss the muscles in his shoulders, and began working her way up to his neck. "Now, we just have to wait," she purred. Her breath tickled the skin on his neck. Then she reached out with her soft delicate tongue to taste his flesh, it was sweaty from the nights adventures and had taken on a salty, wet flavor. After a long exaggerated lick from the base of his neck to the tip of his chin, he gazed into her hungry eyes and cooed, "…I guess waiting won't be so bad."

Sunday

**The alarm clock** rang even louder for Clark than it did for Lois, because of his enhanced hearing. What were they thinking, beginning a love making session only a few hours before they had to wake up for work. He felt more sorry for Lois. As soon as the golden rays of sunshine began to squeeze through his bedroom window and caress his accepting flesh, he could feel himself growing more energized by the moment. He sprang out of bed after hitting the snooze button and decided he would help her out by getting the coffee started.

After setting everything for the coffee up, he decided he would give it a little boost. He hadn't put his glasses on so there was no need to lift them up. He slightly opened the threshold that held back his heat vision and two thin crimson beams of intense heat streaked into the pot, warming it instantly. After a couple seconds of this, he was ready to pour the first cup. Just as he finished pouring the first cup, Lois' cell phone began to ring. He sat the pot and the cup down and lifted off until he hovered just a couple inches above the carpet and glided over to where her phone was, never touching the ground. The caller ID read: Perry White.

"Yeah chief," Clark answered.

"Clark? Clark! We got another killing. You and your partner get out a bed and get over there. Police scanner says 10119 38th street."

"On it chief."

"**It's almost exactly** like last night," Clark heard Detective Yarborough tell the FBI agent who had apparently taken over jurisdiction. "No forced entry, same blood spatters as last night…the only difference is, this time there's only one girl. That makes five in the last two weeks."

"…At least she managed to let out a scream to alert the neighbors," the FBI agent added.

"Right."

"Did anybody get a look at the perp?" the agent asked.

"You wish."

From three stories down, on the street Clark heard every minor detail of the conversation and relayed it all to Lois. "Same M.O. as yesterday, honey." He lifted up his glasses to use his X-ray vision. He scanned the room, and sure enough it was just like the room from last night. The body had the spinal cord ripped out in a disturbingly impressive display of strength. Once again the entire floor was covered in dark red, viscous fluid, with the girl's tiny footprints mixed in. However, the killer's trail was once again, missing from the equation. The girl's right arm was adorned with a red paper wristband with small, black letterhead that seemed very familiar to Clark.

"Luke and Duke's."

Lois, in the middle of her interview the first officer on the scene, turned and glanced at her husband. "I'm sorry Clark, what'd you say?"

"Luke and Duke's. The girl was at Luke and Duke's last night." _This is rapidly getting out of hand_, he thought. He would have to go back to the club.

Wednesday

"**Absolutely not," Clark** said. "Lois, you must be out of your mind if you think I'm going to let you go undercover, to attract some super powered psychopath. No way in hell."

"Clark, you heard what the bartender said, all five victims were known as real party girls, by the people who knew them. All I have to do is pretend to be drunk and make out with a couple of hot college guys to attract his attention."

He knew it was meant as a joke, but couldn't for the life of him shake the images of the past two weekends. Five dead girls…five failures on his part. It made him sick to think about it. "What if I can't reach you in time?" he pleaded.

"Whatever happened to that whole faster than a speeding bullet thing?" she teased.

"This is not a joke Lois. I won't willingly endanger my wife."

"Clark Kent. All we have to do is have Superman pay a visit to the FBI field office in Metropolis and offer up a suggestion. They'll stick 20 agents on me and you can watch from above. And if anybody can take out 20 FBI agents, _and_ Superman…then, Heaven help us all."

Friday

"**Alright Mrs. Kent**, if we could just have your wedding ring you'll be all set to go," said agent Maddox.

"Of course," she forced herself to smile. She was slightly unnerved by the sudden reality of her situation, but then she looked up into the calming blue eyes of her husband and hero, and was instantly at peace.

Superman folded his muscular arms across his broad chest and gave her a reassuring look. "Good luck Mrs. Kent," he added, keeping up the pretenses of his secret identity.

Lois touched the microphone hidden in her hair for reassurance and then climbed into the front seat of the car with her partner for the mission, FBI agent Anjelica Davis. Anjelica was a leggy blonde with disarmingly attractivecharacteristics. She would provide ample competition for the attractive Lois under normal circumstances, but for this job she was strictly scenery. After all it was pretty much gospel that women didn't go to clubs or bars by themselves. She smiled to herself and thought, _the FBI's Metropolis field office had certainly covered all of the angles._

It took them thirty minutes to arrive at the club and when they reached the front of the line, Lois saw that good ol' Charlie was working the door. She handed over her FBI constructed fake id that said she was 21 years old. It was ironic when she thought about it. Her having a fake id saying that she was younger than she really was, when most of the other people in line had fake ids claiming that they were older.

He bought and Charles waved both of the women in, where they proceeded to the bar. It was time to catch a killer.

Three hours later

**Lois had made **the most out of her excursion down memory lane, she simply tried to remember what her friends where like in college. After forcing herself to make out with every cute boy or girl who smiled at her she finally found herself back at the bar.

"You're quite the dancer," he told her.

"What!" Lois shouted, in an effort to be heard over the music.

He leaned in, "I said, you're…a great…dancer." He had wavy blonde hair, a surfer's tan, dark blue eyes and a strong jawline.

_Now, here is someone who probably has no problem getting dates_, she thought. She flashed him a playfully seductive smile and thanked him for the compliment.

"Let me buy you a drink," he offered.

"Of course. Vodka and cranberry, no ice."

"I remember." His eyes seemed to sparkle in the club lights. Not an easy feat.

Lois accepted her drink and suddenly felt eyes watching her. She glanced over to her left, and at the end of the bar sat two girls eyeing her vindictively.

"I think my presence is upsetting your fanclub," she said.

He continued to stare into Lois with piercing blue eyes and without looking at the girls said, "Who them? They don't have anything on you. I need a girl that can relax, you know? A girl that can party.

**A hundred stories** up Clark watched and listened in nervous anticipation. "That's him Lois," he said to himself. A girl that can party…a party girl…he should've known. fifteen minutes later he watched as everyone poured out of the club like the tide washing up on the streets outside. That is, everyone…except Lois. He used his x-ray vision and his telescopic vision to peer into the nightclub. She was at the bar flirting with the bartender. Perfect! Then she _had_ recognized him as a suspect.

Moments later he watched as the new couple left the bar together, presumably to go back to Lois' place. If this was their guy, then that's where they were heading.

To keep him from knowing the true location of Lois' home, the FBI set up a fake home equipped with everything that a young college girl would need. Clark watched as Lois slipped into the passenger seat and then the black Nissan pulled off and darted down the street. Eight agents who had been partying in the club alongside Lois and Anjelica piled into four matching black bureau cars and trailed Lois and the suspect. Twelve more agents awaited the couple back at Lois' apartment.

Superman sprang into the air, leaving the edge of the 100-story building and flew after them all. Everything was going according to plan. The only thing that could stop them now was if…

_"Help, Superman help!"_

He heard the cries as clear as day. _No, not now,_ he thought, pausing in midair. He looked back in the direction of the FBI convoy and then he looked off in the direction of the call for help. _What to do?_ He remembered back when he was younger, and his father told him that if he was gonna choose to be a superhero than he was going to have to learn some important lessons. The first one being, that you can't save everybody. He was in high school at the time, and now over ten years later, he still hadn't been able to accept that first lesson. What kind of hero did that make him if he couldn't even come to terms with the very first lesson of super heroism.

He looked back in the direction of Lois, and then at the unknown screaming woman and hesitated.

It was time to make a choice.

**The two stumbled** into Lois' pseudo apartment kissing passionately. _Jeeze Lois, making out with a psychopathic murderer with super human strength. The things I do for my country,_She joked with herself, borrowing a line from the great James Bond himself. She led him to the bedroom and began to notice him getting rougher and rougher. It seemed like he grew in power and intensity the closer they got to sex.

When they finally made it to the bedroom he threw her down on the bed and loomed over her. "Sluts like you make me sick," he spat.

She thought he was going to say something hot and erotic and was caught off guard by the malice in his voice. "Excuse me?"

"Having sex with anyone you come across, stealing boyfriends, breaking up marriages, spreading disease, chipping away at the very fabric of this glorious nation." His once alluring baby blue eyes began to glow with hatred and he stepped around the bed to her and snatched her up by the throat. "For your sins, you will be punished," he growled, his grip tightening like a steel vice around her neck. "What do you have to say for yourself?"

Her feet slipped across the silk bed sheets as she struggled to maintain her footing. "You're…under…ar…rest," she choked.

The click clack of submachine guns and 9 mm semiautomatic pistols being chambered could be heard as 5 agents burst out the bedroom closet. Lois had been versed in FBI tactics and knew that they preached superiority of firepower as well as manpower, which meant that there were more than a dozen agents blocking off all of the exits as well as prepared to storm the apartment if necessary.

He still clutched Lois by the throat but loosened his grip a little so she could breathe. "What…what is this?" he said staring down the barrel of three submachine guns and two 9mm pistols. "Who are you?"

"It doesn't matter. All you need to know is…" she pointed at the five agents "…that's the FBI."

"Put the girl down," agent Maddox said. "NOW."

The bartender laughed. "You think you can stop me with…guns?"

"We were hoping we wouldn't have to find out," agent Maddox replied. "So, we brought help." There was silence as agent Maddox and the other four agents stood with their weapons fixed on the blonde bartender. "I said…we brought help," agent Maddox repeated, but their was no Superman.

The blonde bartender growled, a low guttural sound, and using his powerful leg muscles, leapt towards the collection of agents, dropping Lois in the process.

All five of the agents opened fire and the following cacophony of gunshots was so loud that Lois had to cover her ears to keep from going deaf.

Superman streaked over downtown Metropolis at over 25,000 miles per hour, the resulting sonic boom sounded more like an atomic bomb. Seconds later he arrived at Lois' pretend apartment and was aghast at the sight before him. Five agents lay bloodied and broken in the street in front of the building, among them was agent Maddox. There was a gaping hole on the fifth floor where the apartment was and he could see Lois hanging on for dear life. There was a thick cloud of gun smoke and a persistent thunder of gunfire as the remaining agents waged war with the bartender.

"Are you alright?" he asked Lois as he pulled her from the apartment. A thin line of blood trickled down the side of her blackened, soot covered face.

"Y…Yeah. Where were you?"

"Somebody needed me."

She nodded, "Well about fifteen Metropolis FBI agents need you now."

"Okay, call an ambulance," he told her as he sat her down on the ground. _I won't fail anyone else today!_ He screamed to himself, and streaked up into the building.

It took seconds to find the bartender and the agents. They were in the stairwell between the third and fourth floors. Two lifeless bodies lay sprawled at the front door leading to the staircase and then Clark saw him. Roughly 6'1 with wavy blonde hair and dark sun tanned skin, as well as a lust for carnage and destruction that was unmatched. He held one of the agents, a female up to the ceiling with one hand and threatened to crush her throat like awet cookie.

"Stop!" Clark shouted.

The bartender turned slowly. "Superman. I knew you would come for me…to help me."

"What?"

"You saw the women right…the whores that were poisoning the very blood of our entire country...the country that _we_ love? I fixed it for you."

"No." _This can't be. He fixed it for me?_

"Yes. I did this for you. So you wouldn't have too. You can clean up the public stuff, and I can clean up the seedy underbelly. We'll be a team. Fighting for truth, justice, and the American way."

Clark struggled to hide his disgust while his mind frantically formulated a plan. "Okay, just put down the agent so we can talk about it. First of all, we need to get you a costume."

This seemed to hit home with the bartender, and he released the woman. "You really mean it?" The look of anger and hatred had faded from his eyes and they had gone back to being plain old blue.

"Yes…I do. Now, follow me, so we can go somewhere and talk about that costume." Superman flew back out the way he had entered and stopped to hover a couple hundred feet above the ground. He didn't seem at all surprised when the bartender mimicked his speed and flight.

"You don't seemed surprised that I can fly." They hovered five stories in the air, next to each other.

"I'm not. At the two crime scenes, there was all this blood on the floors, but yet you managed to leave no footprints. It wasn't hard, now let's go."

Superman took off for rural Metropolis, using more and more speed as he flew. He was testing the bartender. When Clark had discovered the man's limitations, he slowed down for a soft landing in a field in Connecticut.

"You're very fast…what's your name?"

"David. David Anthony Kifer."

"Well, pleased to meet you David." Superman extended his hand for a handshake, and Kifer did not hesitate to accept. However, that was not all Clark was offering, he swung his left arm in a devastating roundhouse. His fist exploded into the bartender's chin with all the force of a 10-ton bomb. So powerful was the blow, that he was lifted up off the ground and sent crashing in the field 100 yards away, digging up a 10 yard trench as he slid to a stop.

As soon as he crashed into the ground, Superman was already on top of him, pummeling away with fists that could shatter steel. DOOM! DOOM! "You didn't do any of that for me!" he screamed. DOOM! "Truth, and Justice you psycho! You call murdering twenty year old students justice?" DOOM! DOOM! "I'll show you justice." The grizzly crack of bone and a ghastly spray of blood didn't seem to stop Clark's fervor, instead it almost seemed to spur him on until, finally he stopped swinging and locked his powerful hands around the battered bartender's neck…and began to squeeze.

Despite all of his super hearing, Clark couldn't hear the helicopter approaching. He just continued squeezing the life out of the bartender from the center of the 50 foot crater that he created in the process of smashing the other man's face in. He could hear the gurgle of Kifer choking on his own blood, and his mangled attempts to breathe…and…he…just didn't care. This man had…this monster had killed at least a dozen people over the last two weeks and he would've kept going if…he would _keep_ going unless…

"Stop! Superman stop," he heard someone call.

He recognized that voice but…

Stop?

No.

How could he?

This was a monster, surely he didn't deserve to live…did he?

"Dammit Clark, stop. You won, it's over." Superman could feel a pair of soft hands caressing his own steel like pair. Her soft, smooth hands gently pried his own away from Kifer's neck. Life was funny that way. He had all the power in the world, but it meant nothing when it came to her.

"Let's go home."

"He…I…"

"I know," she hugged him with all of her relative might. "But it's over now. Everything is okay."

Tuesday

**Superman attended the** burial service of the seven FBI agents, from the back row with Lois. Some kind and generous person had offered him a seat up front, but he politely refused. He didn't deserve to sit up front, when he was the cause of it all.

"This is all my fault," he said.

"What?"

"_All_ of this. Kifer was only killing those girls because in his own sick and twisted way, he wanted to be me. And those agents only died because I heard someone in trouble on the way to the apartment, and I had to go help her."

"We all do what we can Clark."

"But I should be able to do _more_ than that."

"And you _do_. You do a lot more. More than anyone has a right to expect. But, you have to stop beating yourself up over this. Sometimes things just happen…you can't save everybody. She stared into those clear blue eyes of his and noticed that they weren't so clear anymore. They had fogged over with a reddish mist, and she immediately wished she could do more for him.

Superman took a deep breath and looked up into the sky, trying to gather himself and think about what she had just said.

It was the first rule of being a superhero.

You can't save everybody…

Then, sighing, he finally resolved that... maybe you can't save everybody...

...but that doesn't mean you don't have to try.


End file.
